It doesn’t seem to be very effective for some reason though (I’ve been thinking for a long while that we’d need to manually set the bounds on the generated membrane mesh)? Well I guess I should get a native code profiler to see what that 60% native code is doing, if it is actually render calls or what.
Resuming our discussion of the editor; It seems that everyone is unanimously in favor of a hex grid based editor for early multicell So I am glad we knocked that out of the park. I can safely assume that further design will now be based off of the hex grid.
For managing the MP pools, it seems that everyone is in favor of either divided MP pools or just an all-encompassing standard one.
After thinking about it a little, I believe that the standard MP pool will suit our needs just fine to start with, so I am in favor of that.
Placing a single mitochondria on a tissue type can have a big difference, since it will effect all cells of that type. Thus it remains a large mutation for the entire organism.
Another perk with going with the standard pool is it shouldn’t require any additional programming, and we can use it as-is. If we decide we don’t want to go with it, we presumably won’t have to discard anything either.
MP Pool Recap
Per-Cell MP Pools
By granting each cell type their own MP pool, we can allow the player to make small changes throughout the cells of their organism without having to focus on any particular one. This could be balanced by altering the cost of individual cell parts, or by decreasing the amount of MP granted to each cell so less can be changed in each cell at once.
Divided MP Pools
By having two separate MP pools for cell specialization, and cell placement, we can allow players to tweak one or two of their cell types without sacrificing options for placing new cells on their bodies.
Dynamic MP Exchange
A bit of an unusual take that is difficult to explain, but by granting each cell their own MP pool, and then an overall MP pool for all changes, we can allow the player to make limited changes to many of their cell types at the cost of spending some MP they could use to place new cells.
(Ex: The player spends 90 MP to place 2 mitochondria in a cell, which then deducts 45 MP from their overall MP pool, leaving them with enough MP to make the same change to one other cell).
Standard MP Pool
All changes cost MP from the same pool, preventing the player from making very many changes to their organism at once.
Unfortunately, we seem to be very divided on how to handle the re-organization of cells that have been edited, and for good reason. There does not seem to be any easy or perfect solution to this problem.
I personally feel that needing to manually update the positioning of edited cells (Option 1) would make for a frustrating and undesirable experience for the player, as small changes to their cell types would constitute a major change in their organism’s layout each time. Not to mention the player could essentially reassemble their organism through this unless we found some way to restrict distance of placement from point of origin.
Thus I am not in favor of this option.
Option 2 might be our best option with the hex grid, as it eliminates the need to worry about repositioning edited cells.
Cells will either retain their original size in the organism when edited, or all cells will possess a uniform size in the organism; depending on what everyone believes will be more desirable. (Uniformity is less exploitable but more boring)
Option 3 shares a similar problem with option 1, as repositioning the cells automatically would not only be a difficult programming task, it would also result in the same undesirable reorganization of the player’s organism. Especially if the reorganized shape is not desired by the player. Thus I feel that this option is off the table.
In conclusion I feel that Option 2 is our best choice, but am willing to debate with others on the matter since this topic is highly contested.
Relocation Recap
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The previously placed cells must be manually updated by the player, requiring them to reposition surrounding cells.
Nothing necessarily appealing to this option other than the lack of programming involved. -
Cells are resized or otherwise don’t change size/shape but still effectively inherit changes made to them in order to fit.
Instead of cells having unique shapes in multicell, we could potentially get away with them all being generic save for some visual changes and external organelle placement. That or we automatically resize cells to fit, but that would not work well with the hex grid. -
Surrounding cells are automatically pushed/repositioned to make room for edited cell types.
This is probably a nightmare to program without creating all sorts of bugs and issues, as well as potentially alter the organism’s shape in unwanted ways.
Summary:
The multicellular editor shall utilize the tried and true hexgrid placement style and standard MP pool for all mutations.
I believe that cells placed on the organism should be uniform in shape (Excluding external parts) to avoid placement difficulties.
If anyone would like to discuss this matter, please let me know! If no one has anything to say then I will go ahead and update the multicell GD and we will be ready to move on.
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I feel like this option is basically the easiest to implement, though without any adjustments will result in some visual glitching. But I think this is a good enough thing to start with. A ton of design decisions in Thrive seem to never come to an optimal design, so I think it’s much more important to get something playable done and start gathering feedback.
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I’m also in the option two camp, and I take the extreme of having all cells be one hexagon. From the prospective of player experience, I don’t think anybody is out there thinking, “it’s not really multicell unless I can make a creature where some of the cells are exactly twice the size of the other cells.”
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Option 2 seems a bit vague of resizing the cell to fit. Like, regardless of the cells actual size visually it will be the same?
This implies that after first creating the cell type its size will be set in stone.
Right?
Well, @Thim said what I was basically thinking regarding this. I forgot to address this point, but yeah, I think initially all the cell types should just be the same hex pattern (for example just a single hex).
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The resizing aspect was referring more to if we went with the free placement option.
In the confines of a hexgrid, resizing is clunky at best if you made a larger cell that needs to fit in a smaller space…
Fo the hexgrid I also mentioned that we could preserve the initial size of cells even when they are edited but I feel that wouldn’t really be beneficial in any way.
We will likely do as hh mentioned; by having all placed cells occupy the same space as that is the simplest most headache free method of dealing with this issue.
It only sacrifices visual elements in the end, which while that might be a little disappointing for some, it’s atleast a safe option.
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There’s been a lot of renewed discussion on Discord regarding the multicellular stage that’s generating a lot of interesting ideas. It is important to have these discussions since we need to understand what the Microbe Stage is building up to in detail, allowing us to move forward more confidently. We also have a better understanding of how we are approaching many important concepts and have a much more mature game in our hands. Discussions regarding the late-multicellular (macroscopic) editor, for example, have been very productive recently: Macroscopic Editor, Progression, and Principles
I realized though that, unless I am mistaken, we don’t really have a (detailed) understanding of how exactly gameplay will work in the beginning of the late-multicellular stage - what the player will actually be doing when they first progress to the 3D world. So I think this is an important area to consider in maturing our understanding of how we will manage the switch between the microscopic and macroscopic stages as a whole.
Now, we don’t need a very in-depth list of how every mechanic will work in the early macroscopic stage - just as was done with the Microbe Stage, we will figure out mechanics as we approach the need to implement them. We just need a good idea of what the player will be doing when they first become macroscopic. The beginning of the late-multicellular stage represents this awkward point in evolutionary history where organisms are macroscopic and complex, but blobby and soft-bodied, still developing into various more familiar lifeforms and food webs. Complex enough to be big, but not yet complex enough for advanced musculatures, skeletal structures, etc. So an understanding of how we will make gameplay a bit more than being an unremarkable blob for an hour that swims around willy-nilly is important.
I’ll start the discussion with a spitballed take on how we can describe the beginning of the late-multicellular stage. Then, we can all discuss what we agree, disagree, and are unsure of based on this starting point.
The beginning of the late-multicellular phase of gameplay - the advent of macroscopic gameplay - will be a huge shift, as the player now inhabits a vast, 3D world. Players could very likely be overwhelmed at first, so the introduction to the late-multicellular phase will reflect the beginning of the Microbe Stage; slow-paced and manageable, with many free resources and minimal threat from other organisms.
The first available sources of food will be somewhat similar to the player’s experiences in the Microbe Stage - players will be foraging on microbe matts alongside the seafloor and filtering through plankton near the surfaces (represented as compound clouds). Players who have parts such as rusticyanin can eat rusted iron deposits, though the low-energy output and shrinking resource pool means most organisms will transition to a form of heterotrophy or photosynthetic-autotrophy to sustain themselves and further progress. Photosynthetic, sessile gameplay is another topic which should be addressed with a focused thread. Plankton and microbial matt density will decrease as more and more organisms develop, eventually introducing an incentive to specialize into more advanced heterotrophic diets.
Players will have a new focus on movement, which will be more in-depth, customizable, and diverse than in the Microbe Stage. Two prominent methods of transversal will be a benthic lifestyle - bottom-dwelling alongside the ocean floor - and pelagic movement - swimming. Note that the two aren’t dichotomous - players can have the capacity to be both, though perhaps to a limited extent early on.
Players will already be offered ways to customize their movement. They can alter their movement strategies by changing their, surface area, mass, their body plan (perhaps increasing the amount of mesoglea found within themselves like jellyfish) or by changing the structure of their appendages. More surface-area and less mass will make it easier for the player to float-freely and swim upwards, but will make it harder to swim downwards. Less surface-area and more mass will make it easier for the player to latch onto the benthic floor and sink, but harder to swim upwards and float freely. Appendages will be limited at first due to a limited nervous system, musculature, and skeletal system, but will have some options. Some appendages will help you swim by either increasing surface area or providing a primitive sort of “paddle”. Other appendages will act as simple graspers/limbs, allowing movement alongside the ocean floor. Players who swim freely will likely focus more on filter-feeding plankton, while benthic players will be more focused on microbial matts.
There will be a limited capacity to prey on other macroscopic organisms at first due to the lack of a sufficient mouth and digestive system. I would like to research simple combat and self-defense adaptations first before offering a description, but stinging appendages are an example of such morphological structures present in simple organisms.
What do we think of this description so far?
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There goes my plan, lol.
On a more serious note, that’s about as far as I think I’ll take the prototype, which is already almost there (just need the convolution surfaces, which Nunz is making, for proper blobby look and some other graphics tweaks, and maybe making the movement not feel terrible).
I think this is pretty much spot on already and already as-written could serve as a really good summary for the multicellular GDD for how the stage starts.
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With our prototype development now reaching into the macroscopic stages, I have decided to take a shot at iterating on the basics of nutrition and how it will be acquired at the beginning of the stage. I will first go over how the player will consume resources, and potential changes in how they do so based on adaptation.
Nutritional Sources
I have decided to iterate on potential sources of energy available at the beginning of the stage. These sources can act as both a primary source of nutrition, and as a transitional diet before players are able to adapt to consume larger prey.
Environmental:
Environmental sources are ever-present and often tied more to geological processes than biological. Dependent organisms can take advantage of these sources even in the utter absence of other life in an area.
Sunlight:
Works exactly as it does in the earlier stages, not much else to say.
At the macroscopic stage, sunlight might not provide enough energy to sustain an organism on it’s own unless they are sessile and efficient. This is because the availability of sunlight never really increases.
Meaningful adaptations would include high surface area parts with large amounts of chloroplasts, substantial storage for when sunlight is not available, and a means of more passive nutrient acquisition.
Black smokers/Vented Gas:
In the previous stages, hydrogen sulfide is found in varying degrees of concentration as compound clouds for the player to locate and consume. This is not quite the same in the macroscopic scale, as hydrogen sulfide is a highly reactive compound that can quickly transition into less available states.
Players will need to locate hydrogen sulfide at it’s source in order to obtain adequate amounts for synthesis. The compound can be found in aquatic environments via hydrothermal vents, or perhaps even as swamp gas. On land, hydrogen sulfide may be found spewing from fissures in volcanic regions, or possibly areas rife with biological decay.
Adaptations could include organic vents to easily take in local environmental gases, or perhaps specialized gut biomes used to cultivate sulfide releasing bacteria within the organism.
Thermal Radiators:
Thermosynthesis is already largely theoretical for microbes, and may very well be impossible for macroscopic life. Still, it’s worth puzzling out how it may work for larger organisms.
As a macroscopic organism, players will no longer be able to rely on slight shifts in temperature to maintain their thermal gradient. Instead, players will need to locate increasingly larger extremes of temperature as they grow in size such as proximity to molten terrain or hot springs.
Perhaps for smaller or very efficient organisms, alternating between intense sunlight and shade may provide some energy.
Iron Ore:
Much like in the microbe stage, iron could be found in chunks throughout the environment. However, large intact chunks may be quite rare, or otherwise largely mixed with other mineral impurities that makes processing difficult. Organisms may need to sift through substrate in order to ingest traces of ferrous materials. Passively absorbing iron leeching from larger chunks may still be possible for very simple organisms, or organisms possessing roots.
Adaptations might include digging apparatus to dig up chunks of iron, or orifices specialized in sifting substrate.
Biological:
These sources of nutrition are provided by lifeforms in various ways, most often by the presence of microbes.
Microbial Mattes:
Sessile microbes such as algae that blanket surfaces in aquatic environments, and perfect sources of nutrition for early macroscopic life. Mattes can easily be grazed on by early life by simple absorption, but more specialized organisms may find difficulty doing so unless specifically adapted.
Microbial mattes could be represented as brown sludge-like substance coating underwater surfaces.
Adaptations would include mouths capable of raking up the mattes from substrate in large swathes, think like a snail’s radula.
Oceanic Plankton:
A broad grouping of free-floating microbes, and anything else small enough to blend in. Plankton provide a significant source of nutrition through sheer amount of biomass alone. Plankton can act as a substantial food source for smaller organisms, or organisms that have adapted to consume large amounts at once.
Plankton could be represented by a brown-tinted cloud, akin to compound clouds.
Adaptations would include filter-feeding apparatus, and/or very large mouths.
Marine Snow:
A familiar source of nutrition much like what is found in the microbe stage. Marine snow is formed by the descent of decaying biological matter from surface biomes. Marine snow provides a constant nutrition source for organisms capable of filtering it out of the water in bulk.
Marine snow could be represented by the presence of sparkling white detritus falling from above.
Roughly the same as plankton as a food source, but may require a more passive lifestyle on the seafloor to sustain an organism with.
Rich Soil:
Substrate that has been enriched by the presence of microbes and decaying matter. Rich soil can be taken advantage of by specialized organisms such as rooted plants or detrivorous worms in various ways, but most other organisms may not be able to utilize this source easily.
Rich soil could be represented by a dark, almost black, brown tint to the earth.
In the beginning, the player would likely be little more than a silly looking worm with no mouth or any specialized organs. Depending on what they evolved to subsist on in prior stages only the most basic and simple forms of sustenance would be achievable such as mattes, sunlight, etc. Predating on other macroscopic organisms at this point will be very difficult without specialized organs, only being limited to toxins and nematocysts to kill competitors.
Players won’t be able to remain comfortable in such a simple lifestyle forever, as rising competition will increasingly pressure the player into seeking out less competitive sources of sustenance and eventually carve out their own unique niche in the world. In what is almost a 1:1 rehash of the microscopic stage, the player will need to evolve to more efficiently gather food in larger quantities and grow to dominate. The eventual goal being to master their environment; Not with an adaptable body, but adaptable mind. (Unless they want to be a plant, I won’t judge.)
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Considering the pretty hard split between early multicellular and late multicellular (macroscopic), I think this thread kind of maybe should be split as the “the beginning” really seems to imply early multicellular.
I was about to comment how the environmental sources except sunlight seem like they should all be pretty much inconsequential in macroscopic as they are so niche and rarely available that evolving to use on of those sources basically locks you into a single location and you can’t explore any other place as there won’t be more of that resource anywhere nearby (migrating from hydrothermal vent to a surface lake to take advantage of one compound seems basically entirely impossible to me).
So I think really the early multicellular is already a solved case (so maybe this thread shouldn’t be named “the beginning” / discussion should continue in a new thread). And only macroscopic transition needs talking about, and there I think we can mostly rule out the environmental sources as they aren’t really on the path from game start to ascension (so they shouldn’t be the primary focus). So for early macroscopic eating microbial mats or some other basic form of predation on smaller forms of life and photosynthesis seem to be basically the only viable option. That is because just when the player has turned macroscopic they can’t have highly specialized forms to acquire food so we need to design how that transition fill work.
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You’re right, we should probably move this on over to Status and Ideas or make a new thread for macroscopic in particular. I’ll split it when I figure out how…
Certainly, though we’ll probably want to implement them in some form eventually. It makes the game much more interesting, allowing for more creative forms of life from the player and AI alike.
The transition should be pretty simple. As a newly macroscopic creature, microbial mattes will be plenty enough as food, and you would be able to simply absorb them as the basic organless worm you are. It would be a very inefficient process but you would have a very low metabolic need to begin with so it would be fine. The player will need to evolve structures and organs to mop up mattes faster or take advantage of new food sources to compete with rising competition from there, which in turn will raise their metabolic need. For example, a mouth would allow them to mop up mattes faster, and developing a proper skin would prevent them from absorbing food through it, but they would be much more protected from the elements. This would allow them to grow larger and begin eating other animals smaller than them.
I recall a thread detailing the metabolic needs of a macroscopic organism and how they can expand somewhere but I can’t quite recall where…
When I find it I’ll go ahead and write it down the basics in our GDD for safekeeping.
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I do agree with this, but I also will say that I think we should represent atleast some of this transition by showing players why certain metabolisms don’t work in macroscopic (as in, still giving them the option to have these alternate diets but making it basically impossible to be based on them for long). There are reasons some diets just don’t last - for example, iron’s large scale disappearance as oxygen spreads throughout the oceans and surface. I think it wouldn’t be ideal if we just blocked out these diets.
Though I realize now after writing this that you aren’t necessarily saying “let’s block out alternative food sources” but instead the emphasis should be on the transition, which I agree with.
Some diets though I’m sure are basically outright infeasible in LAWK or Earth-like conditions. For example, I just can’t see a radiation diet working for macroscopic organisms. So that deserves focus in the discussion: how we deal with parts that almost easily go redundant in the transition.
Maybe one of Nick’s threads about nutrients/metabolism? Metabolic Rate System
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Yeah, my point was that we should focus on the “intended” primary food source initially just so that we can get the basic metabolism done. And I wouldn’t necessarily say we should intentionally block those food sources, just that we’ll leave those unimplemented. With the end result being that if the player tries to use those food sources, they’ll just not find anything to eat.
There has been some baseline discussion of macroscopic stage features, but not much about the Early Multicellular. As we approach the great crucible, it might be a good idea to have just a few ideas about what we will end up doing. Here is a first attempt of that.
EARLY-MULTICELLULAR: WHAT WILL IT LOOK LIKE?
I think the Early-Multicellular should be a cracked out send-off of Microbe Stage mechanics, allowing the greatest deal of experimentation before advancing to a new frontier. The environment will generally be much more stable, and players will have generally carved out their niche and strategies. It’s also likely to be a relatively short period of time in a Thrive playthrough - we still inherently group it together with the larger “Multicellular Stage” after all - so the introduction of entirely new mechanics would probably result in a crowded and bloated experience. So ultimately, the early-multicellular stage should be treated as an “end” of a certain line of progression rather than the advent of an entirely new experience.
In general, we can make these assumptions about the Early Multicellular Stage…
- The player will be more comfortable with Microbe Stage mechanics, having displayed competence through their prior performance.
- Environmental conditions are more stable now, with oxygenation and such generally progressing, and the climate generally stable.
- The player has generally established a niche and metabolic strategy. Their focus now is more on refinement and expansion over exploration of possibilities. This doesn’t meant that players are not willing to try new things out, but more likely than not, they will stick with what they have established.
What does this ultimately mean? We can give the player more advanced mechanics to work with to replicate some of the biological pressures and phenomena that emerge with multicellularity. We will still need to be mindful of introducing too much at once of course, but in general, the assumptions we make about the player at the beginning of the Microbe Stage are very different from the assumptions we make about a player at the beginning of the Multicellular Stage. For the latter, we know that the player is atleast oriented to the basics of Thrive, and we can now focus more on introducing mechanics without thinking about whether or not someone even knows what is going on.
Meta & Theory Considerations
- The Early Multicellular represents a very specific moment in evolutionary history where eukaryotes developed the ability to bind to each other. This is a moment of time where theory could be really hard to understand for lay people, so consideration from the Theory Team would be very helpful.
- Legacy concepts of this stage called for a continuous and completely smooth transition between the 2D microbial stage to the 3D macroscopic stage, with this portion of the game being the crux of said transition. Perhaps we’ll find a way to induce this with further development, but as of now, our standard for “smooth” transition is a bit lower than perhaps was originally thought. It would require an immense amount of art assets and effort to portray this transition, and would probably require the introduction of intensive yet short-lived mechanics for this stage only that wouldn’t carry over much. As such, the transition between the microscopic and macroscopic will probably end up being our most abrupt and jarring transition. Current concepts have a jump to a 1 cm scale for the Macroscopic Stage in mind.
- Considering the above technical and theoretical considerations, gameplay might be the most abstracted at this stage of Thrive. There might be room for introducing mechanics which serve as a proxy for biological phenomena seen in life at a larger scale than several cells bound together, such as the scale of tardigrades and certain algae formations, since the transition between the microscopic and macroscopic could be very abrupt. Though, again, immersion and realism is priority.
FEATURE DISCUSSIONS
Adjacency
A concept a while ago briefly proposed adding a sort of adjacency bonus to the Microbe Editor, allowing parts closer to the edge of the cell to be more powerful. I don’t think that mechanic is appropriate to apply to individual cells, but the Multicellular Stage could be a great way to introduce adjacency bonuses. Though, in a different, more traditional way.
In essence: cells will interact with each other, providing bonuses to certain attributes depending on the nature of said interaction. Placing a cell with vacuoles in it next to a toxin cell for example could provide more storage for toxin, putting it close to a chloroplast-bearing cell could provide more storage for glucose, etc. The bonuses could scale higher depending on the number of interacting parts in each cell, promoting specialization.
This provides some more macroscopic attributes for the player to contend with, adding another layer of decision-making and strategy besides place x part to improve y stat, done.
Surface Area & Volume
I have made a concept focused on surface area and volume for the Microbe Editor. I still advocate for its inclusion in the Microbe Stage itself, especially after playing around with Thim’s prototype he generously offered, but I see the concept becoming more influential and powerful for the early multicellular stage.
Essentially, making that stat even more important could further encourage players to specialize their cells, with higher surface area and higher volume parts offering different benefits. The feature could be influential yet slightly less important in the Microbe Stage, then dialed up a bit as the player gets binding agents.
Surface area serves as a very important characteristic for soft-bodied organisms, and metazoans as a whole, so this mechanic would be a representation of a familiar mechanic that the player will encounter in all of Thrive’s biological stages.
Enhanced Abilities
Upon meeting certain criteria or perhaps through upgrades to parts only offered after becoming multicellular, new abilities pop-up which essentially represent pre-existing behaviors on steroids. I can think of a few currently:
- Enhanced Filter Feeding - Unlocked when placing four cells with suction cilia, the current generated when phagocytosing is increased. This serves as a proxy to choanoflagellate flagellar pumping, a real behavior seen in the closest relatives to metazoans today.
- Toxin/Agent Emission - Unlocked when placing four cells with toxins or slime jets. Upon pressing an ability key, rapidly replenish and fire toxin projectiles, or exude slime.
- Enhanced Chemoreception - Unlocked when placing four cells with chemoreceptors on them. Able to scroll the screen out more.
Further Refinements to Microscopic Gameplay
Gameplay between the Microbe and Early Multicellular Stages are largely shared, so improvements to the Microbe Stage are technically ending up to be improvements to the Early Multicellular Stage as well. This doesn’t mean that we should just focus on adding even more features to the Microbe Stage. Rather, I think we will end up tweaking a couple of things to make the Multicellular Stage more robust. It also does give more time for volunteer-driven features to be implemented.
Other Considerations
There are other things I can think of currently that should be looked at, but I don’t have an immediate answer to them:
- Binding Agent Revamp - Progression will definitely need to be controlled with binding agents so that players can’t just shoot straight for 20 cells, forcing some more interaction with cell differentiation.
- General Balancing - Balancing will no doubt have to be a major focus of the Early Multicellular Stage.
- Offensive Capabilities - Besides super-charged upgrades to existing parts and abilities, we might have to introduce one or two new combat mechanics unique to the Early Multicellular. For example, one of Thim’s prototypes had the ability to slice off parts of a cell with a pilus. Perhaps that could be interesting in the Early Multicellular Stage.
- Diversified Reproduction - We could shoot for representing two asexual reproduction methods, and two sexual reproduction methods.
I will also link Thim’s thread about potential representation of soft-bodied organisms since it could be something we investigate: Proposal for Simulating Early Multicellular Organisms as Soft Bodies
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
So, there we have it; some sort of concept about the Early Multicellular Stage! Do I think there will end up being more features than just this handy list that we should implement? Maybe a bit, yes; but I do think the underlying assumption - the Early Multicellular as a climax of Microbial mechanics - is correct.
It would probably be a good idea to have a discussion with the community at some point regarding what things they want the Early-Multicellular Stage to include as the roadmap finishes. I am sure a lot of replies will be requests to implement completely new mechanics or features that don’t harmonize well with existing game design ideals in Thrive. But I do think it will help us understand general expectations for this interesting portion of Thrive’s development.
And ultimately, our community does deserve to be heard. They’ve stuck with us through the completion of Thrive’s first stage, which many people honestly dismissed as impossible in the past. That deserves much more praise and reward than we could be capable of giving currently, but we can show some appreciation and lend an ear.
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Blockquote
I think the Early-Multicellular should be a cracked out send-off of Microbe Stage mechanics, allowing the greatest deal of experimentation before advancing to a new frontier.
I like this idea and I want to suggest adding an organ (similar to Trophosome, Hindgut, Photophore, etc.) that will allow your species to engage in mutualistic symbiosis with bacteria. This organ can generally work as “multicellular endosymbiosis”, but instead of unlocking organelles, it will allow you to use process of your symbiont for some sort of reward for symbiont in form of food or protection. This way players that weren’t able to unlock needed organelles during unicellular stage will be able to get benefits of having them in form of mutualistic symbiosis, which can make transition to multicellular stage much softer and experiments-friendlier.
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